Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica

by Nancy Gonlin (Editor), David Millard Reed (Editor)

Overview

Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica is the first volume to explicitly incorporate how nocturnal aspects of the natural world were imbued with deep cultural meanings and expressed by different peoples from various time periods in Mexico and Central America. Material culture, iconography, epigraphy, art history, ethnohistory, ethnographies, and anthropological theory are deftly used to illuminate dimensions of darkness and the night that are often neglected in reconstructions of the past.
 
The anthropological study of night and darkness enriches and strengthens the understanding of human behavior, power, economy, and the supernatural. In eleven case studies featuring the residents of Teotihuacan, the Classic period Maya, inhabitants of Rio Ulúa, and the Aztecs, the authors challenge archaeologists to consider the influence of the ignored dimension of the night and the role and expression of darkness on ancient behavior. Chapters examine the significance of eclipses, burials, tombs, and natural phenomena considered to be portals to the underworld; animals hunted at twilight; the use and ritual meaning of blindfolds; night-blooming plants; nocturnal foodways; fuel sources and lighting technology; and other connected practices.
 
Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica expands the scope of published research and media on the archaeology of the night. The book will be of interest to those who study the humanistic, anthropological, and archaeological aspects of the Aztec, Maya, Teotihuacanos, and southeastern Mesoamericans, as well as sensory archaeology, art history, material culture studies, anthropological archaeology, paleonutrition, socioeconomics, sociopolitics, epigraphy, mortuary studies, volcanology, and paleoethnobotany.
 
Contributors: Jeremy Coltman, Christine Dixon, Rachel Egan, Kirby Farah, Carolyn Freiwald, Nancy Gonlin, Julia Hendon, Cecelia Klein, Jeanne Lopiparo, Brian McKee, Jan Marie Olson, David M. Reed, Payson Sheets, Venicia Slotten, Michael Thomason, Randolph Widmer, W. Scott Zeleznik
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646421879
Publisher:	University Press of Colorado
Publication date:	12/01/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	369
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Nancy Gonlin is a Mesoamerican archaeologist who specializes in daily and nightly practices, household studies, and inequality. She is editor-in-chief of Ancient Mesoamerica, and her publications include the coedited volumes Commoner Ritual and Ideology in Ancient Mesoamerica, Ancient Households of the Americas, Human Adaptation in Ancient Mesoamerica, and Archaeology of the Night. She is coauthor of Copán: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Kingdom and The Archaeology of Native North America, 2nd ed. Gonlin is a professor of anthropology at Bellevue College in Washington.
 
David M. Reed is an anthropological archaeologist with extensive experience in stable isotope biogeochemistry, mortuary analyses, sociopolitics of the ancient Maya, human genetics, and quantitative analysis, who has done pioneering research on ancient mitochondrial DNA of the Copán Maya. He was a Genome Science Training Program Research Fellow at the Center for Statistical Genetics at the University of Michigan; a visiting scholar at the Center for Archaeological Investigations at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; and a Summer Fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC. A former research specialist at the Kellogg Eye Center of the University of Michigan and current senior research statistician at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, he researches the biology and genetics of eye diseases.
 

Table of Contents

Contents List of Figures List of Tables Preface Introduction to Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica | David M. Reed and Nancy Gonlin 1. Classic Maya Social Distinctions and Political Power: Inserting a Nocturnal Dimension into the Hierarchy of Consumption | David M. Reed, W. Scott Zeleznik, and Nancy Gonlin 2. Mesoamerican Plants of the Night: Ethnographic and Paleoethnobotanical Perspectives | Venicia Slotten 3. Extending the Notion of Night and Darkness: Volcanic Eruptions in Ancient Mesoamerica | Rachel Egan 4. Illuminating Darkness in the Ancient Maya World: Nocturnal Case Studies from Copan, Honduras, and Joya de Cerén, El Salvador | Nancy Gonlin and Christine C. Dixon-Hundredmark 5. Teotihuacan at Night: A Classic Period Urban Nocturnal Landscape in the Basin of Mexico | Randolph J. Widmer 6. The Sounds in the Dark of the Temazcal at Cerén, El Salvador | Payson Sheets and Michael Thomason 7. The Heat of the Night: Duality in Aztec Health and Nocturnal Healing Activities with a Focus on the Temazcal | Jan Marie Olson 8. The Cave and the Skirt: A Consideration of Classic Maya Ch’een Symbolism | Jeremy D. Coltman 9. Night and the Underworld in the Classic Period Ulúa Valley, Honduras | Jeanne Lopiparo 10. The Light Burned Brightly: Postclassic New Fire Ceremonies of the Aztec and at Xaltocan in the Basin of Mexico | Kirby Farah 11. Under Cover of Darkness: Blindfolds and the Eternal Return in Late Postclassic Mexican Art | Cecelia F. Klein 12. Nighttime and Darkness: Activities, Practices, Customs, and Beliefs | Julia A. Hendon Index Contributors

Editorial Reviews

“Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica is an exciting volume that convinces the reader archaeology is fully capable of answering deep inquiries into the emotions, sensations, and mysteries of the night. The volume inspires fresh questions about ancient sensation while simultaneously providing rich new data on the potency of darkness to the people of ancient Mesoamerica. The nightscape is now an essential component in our studies of the past.”
—Traci Ardren, University of Miami
 
“A great group of scholars talk about a fascinating and overlooked topic.”
—Travis Stanton, University of California, Riverside

“Opens important areas of inquiry that relate illumination and darkness to questions of power and inequality, personal and communal experience, biological rhythms and healing practices.”
—Antiquity

From the Publisher